How to Model Multi-Location Customers in Business Software
Start with the short answer ↓
Separate the customer organization from its locations and the people authorized for each. This avoids treating every branch as an unrelated customer or giving every contact company-wide access.
Prepared with AI assistance. These are practical scoping recommendations; examples are illustrative, not client results.
Define the hierarchy
Identify which information belongs to the organization and which belongs to a location. Billing terms may be shared while service instructions differ. Document exceptions rather than assuming a single hierarchy fits all customers. Some contacts may manage several locations without controlling the whole organization.
Assign records deliberately
Decide whether requests, documents, and approvals belong to a location, the parent account, or both. Make the association visible during creation. Moving a record between locations should require an authorized action, especially when the change affects who can see or approve it.
Support organizational change
Locations can close, merge, or move under a different parent. Preserve the historical relationship needed to interpret completed work. Avoid rewriting every old record to match the current organization chart. Define how new work uses the changed structure while earlier work retains its context.
Validate the views
Test a local contact, a regional manager, and a central administrator with realistic records. Ask each to find their outstanding work and verify what they cannot access. The right model supports both local action and company-level visibility without making either group navigate irrelevant or unauthorized records.